1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to methods and systems for searching and retrieving records from a database and in particular to capturing a user's preferences to facilitate retrieval of records from the database in accordance with those preferences. The invention is suitable for use in applications in which the records retrieved from the database correspond to books, films, music or the like and it will be convenient to describe the invention in relation to that exemplary, but non-limiting, application.
2. Brief Description of Related Art
Numerous search techniques have been developed to facilitate the retrieval of records based on keywords entered by a user. Such techniques however, require that the user has specific information about the item that they are searching for. For example, if the user is searching for a book, the user must be able to enter at least one keyword corresponding to a title, an author, or a publisher. If the user is searching for a motor vehicle, the user must be able to enter at least one keyword corresponding to a model, a make, or a type of vehicle. Such search techniques typically generate a significant number of hits. Many will not meet the requirements of the user.
Searching by keywords requires that the user be able to think laterally in the selection of suitable keywords to maximise the chances of the user locating a record of interest. These drawbacks make such search techniques frustrating to the user, particularly where there are significant numbers of records to choose from.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a method and system for facilitating the provision of more meaningful search results to a user by extracting as much detail as possible regarding the user's preference before executing the search. It would also be desirable to provide a user friendly user interface to enable a user to enter their preferences in a more intuitive manner. It would also be desirable to provide a method for capturing user preferences in relation to one or more criteria that ameliorates or overcomes one or more disadvantages of existing user preference capturing methods. It would also be desirable to provide a method of making a selection from a plurality of records in a database that ameliorates or overcomes one or more disadvantages of existing selection methods.